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“How’re you liking the new guy?” Roger asked, poking his elbow into Brian’s side.
Brian made a contemplative face before shrugging. “As long as he can play the bass and not get in the way, I don’t really care if he’s, uh, weird,” he said, head tilting a little as the two of them watched John in a far off corner. He flapped his hands a bit before plucking some notes on his bass, looking at the music sheet before him. He’d have to let out some more flaps before he could finish what he was practicing.
“I’d say a bit more than weird,” Roger said with a sneer only to whine when Freddie, who was passing by slapped his head proper.
“He’s not going to want to stay in the band if you two keep gawking at him,” Freddie hissed, proceeding to slap Brian’s head too. Brian’s curls were a buffer, but he still frowned rubbing the back of his head.
“Now go talk to him like normal people rather than sitting back and gossiping like old maids,” Freddie continued, his dark eyes nearly black as he squinted at them.
“We’ll play nice, jeez,” Roger replied, hands up defensively.
But none of them went to talk to John. Not that John noticed, too busy focusing on learning as many songs as possible.
♚
“Brian!” John called, a glow on his face and in his voice when the taller walked into the room.
Brian was pulled from his day dreams, blinking as John approached him, fingers wringing and wriggling excitedly.
“Hm?” he said, rather disinterestedly, wanting to go fiddle with Red Special than talk with John. He talked funny.
“I saw you struggling with your amp, so I fixed it,” John said while practically beaming, his gap toothed smile wide.
Brian recoiled internally at the though of John fiddling with his gear. The bloke couldn’t know how to deal with electronics, right?
Tentatively, Brian put on a forced smile and said, “D-Did you?”
John nodded, making fists to steeling his excitement.
“Yeah! A few wires were rusted and the circuit board was a mess, but I patched it all up for you. It sounds even better now,”
Brian’s smile grew faltered, worrying about the state of his amp. Through grit teeth, he asked, “Where is it?”
Without hesitation John led him to his amp, plugging it in and connecting it to his own bass. He strummed a little melody before messing with the dials, playing again to show off it’s versatility. Also showing off that it in fact was working significantly better than it was yesterday.
Brian’s jaw dropped, staring at the tiny amp making impossibly stable and loud sounds and then at John, who couldn’t get that ridiculously sweet smile off his face.
“You..fixed it? You fixed it! Brilliant!” Brian said, almost unable to wait to plug in his old lady and hear her sing.
“Yes! For you!” He continued to strum idly.
Brian’s brain stuttered on the words ‘For you’, his own smile disappearing.
He hadn’t been a very good band member, always dismissing and ignoring John. Like he had this air of superiority just because he wasn’t ‘weird’. Even though Brian was. He was a geek. An outcast in school. And here he was doing the same thing but as an adult.
He shook his head clear of those thoughts, a hand going to John’s shoulder.
“Thank you, John. I appreciate you thinking of me,”
John just let out a small giggle before unplugging his bass and running off.
Weird guy with a sweet heart. The sweetest Brian’s ever seen.
♚
“What are you doing, darling?” Freddie said, eyebrows knitted, having stopped in the middle of belting out a song to himself when he saw John gesticulate weirdly.
“Do you not like my singing?” he added, not really serious nor joking.
John stilled his flapping hands and shaking head, eyes growing wide. He begun to shake his head, not happily, but in the negative.
“N-No! I love your singing! A lot, actually,” John said, internally confused as the why Freddie had stopped singing. He wasn’t being distracting, was he?
“Oh. Uh, well, with all that hand flailing I couldn’t be sure,” he laughed awkwardly. “What’s up with that, anyways? The…” Freddie flapped his hands to finish the question, head cocked to the side. He always saw John doing something strange with his body. Squeaking, flapping, mussing up his hair. He could never quite understand what any of that meant.
It took John a second to get the question, perking up once he did. That was a common question he got and while it could be phrased viciously, Freddie asked politely. Somewhat at least. So he was happy to answer.
“Sometimes I feel something so much that I have to let it out or I’ll get distracted by it. Like my stomach can only hold so much sadness or happiness that it needs to be drained every once in a while,” John explained, hoping Freddie was following.
“Or sometimes I do it to keep focused. If not a lot’s happening, my brain will focus on like the wind instead of my assignment or what have you,”
“But right now, I was doing this,” John flapped, a grin stretching onto his lips, “Because you sing so beautiful, Freddie. Like an angel, I think. Never heard an angel, but I think you’d sound like one. And my stomach started to feel like fireworks were going off and sparklers. Hundreds of ‘em. So I just..” He flapped harder, shaking his head from side to side, his fluffy hair swooshing and swaying as he did so.
Freddie couldn’t help but to smile too, his heart suddenly feeling mushy from the compliment and the younger mans display of enjoyment.
“An angel?” Freddie asked, his gaze gentle on the youngest who couldn’t stop wiggling.
“Yeah. An angel,” John managed to say despite his wild shaking.
Freddie hummed, his face going warm.
He certainly had a new favorite band member.
♚
“Oh, there you are! Roger, can you help me?” John asked, pointing to Freddie’s indecipherable music sheet.
Roger stopped his trek to the back room in search of drum parts and nodded, steering himself over the the table John was hunched over.
“What’s the matter, John?” he asked as he pulled a chair close to the other and sat down, peering onto the music sheet.
John threw his hands up, frowning. “Everything! None of this makes sense. Starting with, this,” he said, pointing to the beginning of the first bar.
“That’s a bass clef, John,” Roger said, his voice suddenly slow and over enunciated.
The hairs on John’s body stood up, his stomach flopping. It was a tone he was all too familiar with. That condescending tone teachers and strangers put on when they wanted to explain something to him, as if he had the cognition of a 3 year old.
John cringed, but assumed it was a mistake. Allistics seemed to be unable to help those random outbursts of baby talk when it came to him.
“I k-know. I mean the key signature. What is that supposed to be? A natural and sharp hybrid?” his finger was on the monstrosity of a key.
Roger glanced at the sheet and laughed. “It’s a sharp! That’s how Fred writes it. You’ll get used to it,”
John breathed out heavily and continued with his questions. “And that?” he asked, pointing to the time signature that appeared to be 0/4 or 8/4, both of which were impossible.
“That’s a time signature,” Roger said again in that stupid voice.
John felt his face go red, his hands going cold and pale.
He’d suffered years of people treating him like a child because he was different. Thinking he was less capable because he talked funny and did things weirdly. He had to bite his tongue for years, having a left a scar on it. But not anymore. Not in his band.
“I bloody know what a time signature is, Roger! I do know how to read music, you know. And you know that I do. Or have you forgotten because you think I’m a retard?” John hissed, gray eyes growing stormy.
“I know I’m not normal like you and the others but I’m not stupid! I’m not stupid! I’m not! Stupid!”
He didn’t mean to blow up, he really didn’t. But he didn’t feel bad in the slightest, especially when he crumbled up the paper and threw it into Roger’s stunned face.
Brian was distant with him. Freddie was mostly confused by him. But Roger was the worst of all. Thinking of him more as a child than an adult. It made him seethe. Ripple with anger.
John stormed out of the room, fingers starting to thread into his hair, yanking and tugging at his brown locks.
He didn’t even notice the blond trailing after him until his shoulder was touched, the sensation like needles to his skin. He jumped, slapping the hand away.
He turned on his heels to look at Roger, his face wrought with shame, eyes so big he could see the whites all around.
John didn’t say anything, teeth working on his bottom lip, hands in his hair.
Roger’s mouth open and shut uselessly, words failing him for once. Or perhaps he decided he wanted to think them through before speaking. For once.
“I-I- uh, John. I’m sorry. I’m really, deeply sorry. I don’t know what came over me to talk to you like that. I…Something came over me,” he said, slowly, only because he was speaking carefully.
John recoiled, wounded further. “Nothing came over you. You just think I’m a spaz.”
Roger tried to say something but John cut him off.
“You do. You have a subconscious bias about me or whatever. But I’m 19 years old and despite how I come across, I think like a 19 year old. I’m getting a degree in electronics and my GPA is higher than you could say for your own degree. Your unfinished one, might I add.”
Roger reeled backwards, blinking at John’s ruthless onslaught. John just fumed, fists now at his side clenched. He was intelligent and he hated that he had to defend that every single day.
There was a grand silence between them, Roger’s face shifting every few seconds from anger to shock and then finally, to a wide smile.
“You’re a cheeky bastard, John,” he said, letting out a gigantic laugh, like he did with the others. Not the meek laugh he used to pity John. A gut busting laugh that brought tears to his eyes.
The rage melted from John’s bones, fighting his lips to stay neutral, but they tugged upwards anyways.
Roger was hunched over, trying to catch his breath, wiping at his eyes. “Mate, you did me dirty,” he let out a loud whew before straightening up. “I’m real sorry for being an ass. Can we start over?” he asked, extending out a hand.
John hesitated before stretching his hand out, grabbing Roger’s and giving it a firm shake.
“I’m John Richard Deacon. Bassist for Queen. The most intelligent of the lot,” he said with his chest puffed out.
“I’m Roger Taylor. Drummer. Dumbass extraordinaire,”
The broke out into cackles, Roger wrapping an arm around John’s shoulder.
He was going to fit in perfectly. Only if they gave him the chance, which they all were from that moment on. Roger would see to it.
♚
There was music playing on the record, sunlight pouring into the tiny flat. Brian sat at the dining room table of Freddie’s and Rogers flat, filling out a crossword puzzle, tongue stuck out between his lips in concentration.
Roger sat on their ratty old couch, arms stretched out over the top, legs splayed out in front of him. He looked up at the ceiling, wondering which pub he’d want to visit that night. There were far too many and so little time.
In his lap laid John- or the top half of him at least- fingers working furiously on the knotted tassles that adorned Roger’s crop top. A fashion disaster of a shirt he’d burn in a fire in 5 years time.
Everyone was content and quiet in their own little worlds, dotted with the occasional question from Brian.
“What’s a 4 letter word for a nobleman?”
“Earl,” John said without so much as a thought, continuing his fiddling with the tassles.
Brian nodded to himself before scribbling that down.
Just then, the door burst open, Freddie walking in with his arms filled with shopping bags.
“Boys! Mama brought home some goodies!” he chirped, closing the door before settling the bags down on the ground.
“You have an addiction!” Roger said, imagining how all those bags put a dent into Freddie’s half of the rent.
“You won’t be saying that once you see what I’ve bought you all,” Freddie quipped with a flair, dropping to his knees to dig through the bags.
He pulled out a pair of sunglasses, round with dark pink lenses. Roger’s tune immediately changed, making grabby hands at them.
“Thought so, bitch,” Freddie murmured before handing them over.
Freddie continued rummaging, pulling out a hunk of metal.
“For my Jimi Hendrix!” he announced, leaning over to give it to Brian.
Brian smiled, holding the mystery object in his hand. “Thank you, Fred. W-What is it…?”
“A telescope thingy! I found it at the market! Isn’t it so lovely and antique? Only costed me 2 pounds,” Freddie said flipping his hair.
“Jesus that’s cheap,” Brian said as he examined the thing that probably wasn’t a telescope.
“Yeah, ‘cuz it’s broken,” Freddie said seriously and then continued to look through his bags. Brian deadpanned, setting whatever the hell the thing was aside and proceeding to finish his crossword puzzle. Freddie had too much money for his own good.
“And finally, for my darling Johnny boy! A rubber duckie!” He held up a fist sized rubber duck, painted in rainbow stripes with big blue eyes. John let out a ear piercing shrill, rolling off of Roger’s lap with the grace of a truck driver, landing (thankfully) on the rug, snatching up the duck, immediately beginning to play with it. It made the most delightful whistling noise when he squished it, the glossy top coat an addicting sensation on his finger tips.
Freddie sat back, watching his friends play with, wear and ignore his gifts, a smile on his face, a sentimental hand on his chest. “Who says I don’t treat my children good?”
“We’re not your kids, Freddie,” Roger said as he wiped the lenses on his glasses clean.
“He does remind me to take my vitamins…” Brian added to the conversation.
“Don’t worry, Fred, you can be my mum,” John said, a little distantly as he was too absorbed by his new toy.
Freddie threw his hands up with a laugh. “That’s why your my favorite kid, Deacy!”
The room grew silent.
“He can’t be your favorite. He’s my favorite,” Roger said, eyes squinted.
“Well, you’re both wrong since he’s my favorite,” Brian said, slamming his pencil down.
“Both of you bitches need to back down. I literally gave birth to him,” Freddie snapped, holding a finger up.
“Freddie, that’s disgusting,”
“Impossible since that’s what I did,”
“Oh now you’re saying you gave birth to him?”
“Perhaps,”
“You know wh-”
All the while, oblivious to it all, John played with the duck, listening to it whistle and looking at the colors. He was thinking of a name for it. He’d ask his friends but they were busy fighting, as usual. He loved them dearly, something he was so happy he could finally say, but they talked far too much. He liked to drown them out every once in awhile. Like right now. The duck let out another long whistle, making him laugh.